The West Coast extends over a distance of some 325 miles on the western side of the Southern Alps in the South Island. Rarely does its width exceed 25 miles and nowhere does it reach much beyond 50 miles. The limits of the region correspond to those of the counties Buller, Murchison, Inangahua, Grey, and Westland, which, together with their interior boroughs, constitute the principal basis for the collection of statistics. The decision to include Murchison county may be disputed, but it is a small point. Greymouth (population 8,881, 1961) is the largest town of the region, which, in 1961, had a total population of 38,875 (1·61 per cent of the New Zealand total population) of which 1·04 per cent were registered as Maoris.

No other region of New Zealand has achieved the celebrity or the degree of individuality which belongs to the West Coast. The gold-rush period, the present dependence upon exploitative industries, the isolation, and the varied landscapes have all contributed to the region's unique social and political solidarity. Nevertheless, in the origins of its renown are to be found also the causes of its decline. The excessive dependence upon coal mining and forestry, the isolation, the scarcity of easily farmed land, the relatively low standard of land use, and the general absence of economic and social development during the past decades, have reduced the West Coast to a position of a marginal region in need of special considerations and assistance. During the last decade, 1951–61, the population of the region declined by 5·22 per cent.

(?–1839).

Ngapuhi chief.

A new biography of Te Wera Hauraki appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Hauraki Kaiteke Te Wera was born at Te Ahuahu, Bay of Islands. His father was Kaiteke and his mother was Te Ao Kapu-Rangi, who was the daughter of an Arawa chief and one of the 40 captives taken at Mahia. Hauraki took the name “Te Wera” (“the burnt”) when his child died of burns. In 1817 he travelled to the East Coast with Titore and 500 Ngapuhi who, having muskets, easily gained ascendancy over the greater part of Mahia Peninsula. He accompanied Hongi in the attack on Mokoia in 1823 when Te Wera's wife saved many of her people. With Pomare he then left for Whakatane, capturing at Tunanui the fleeing Ngati Awa, whose pa at Puketapu they had taken. Leaving Pomare at Waiapu Te Wera then visited Maia to return one of its chiefs, Whareumu, whom he had captured there in 1821. Here he was offered leadership of the Ngati Kahungunu, whose land in the Heretaunga Plains was being encroached upon by the central tribes, particularly the Ngati-Ruakawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa. Later, in 1832, he was besieged for two months at Okura-Renga (called Kai-uhu “clay-eaters”) pa by the Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Tuwharetoa, and Te Arawa. Te Wera, assisted by northern reinforcements, repulsed the invaders and routed them at Mangatoetoe and Waipohue. Reprisals over, the Ngati Kahungunu remained unmolested in the Heretaunga Plains until the Hauhau craze of 1865. In 1836 Te Wera, with 1,700 Ngapuhi and Ngati Kahungunu, sailed North to claim “utu” for the deaths of Te Huki and his nephew, Marino, both of whom had been killed in 1823 by the Whanau-a-Apanui of Te Kaha.

A wise and successful leader in peace and a courageous strategist in war, Te Wera, in 1830, arranged with Pareihe an alliance of Hawke's Bay tribes. He was greatly influenced by the missionaries at Okura and prohibited the eating of the dead at Te Kaha. He returned to the Bay of Islands an old man, dying there in 1839.

by Robert Ritchie Alexander, M.A., DIP.ED.(N.Z.), B.T.(CALCUTTA), PH.D.(MINNESOTA), Teachers' Training College, Christchurch.

• The Early Journals of Henry Williams, Senior Missionary in New Zealand of the Church Missionary Society, 1826–40, Rogers, L. M (1961)
• Takitimu, Mitchell, J. H. (1944).

(1863–1933).

Feminist and social worker.

A new biography of Wells, Ada appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Ada Wells was born at Henley-on-Thames, Worcester, England, in 1863, and was the daughter of a coachbuilder, William Henry Pike, and Marie, née Welsh, the family emigrating to Canterbury in 1873. Ada was educated at the Avonside Girls' School and, having won a university scholarship, graduated B.A. from Canterbury University College. Before her marriage to Henry Wells in 1884 she taught at the Christchurch Girls' High School. With Professor Bickerton, Mrs Wells founded the Canterbury Women's Institute in 1892, an early feminist organisation, and was its president for many years. She campaigned actively for the women's suffrage movement, heading a Christchurch committee formed for this purpose. In 1896 Ada Wells became the first secretary of the National Council of Women and was closely associated with the radical platform of the group in its early years. With the aid of Sister Frances Torlesse and Mrs T. E. Taylor she aroused public interest in the formation of the Children's Aid Society and the sponsoring of orphanages by religious societies. Ada Wells was one of the first two women members of the Canterbury Hospital Board, the second woman to sit on the Charitable Aid Board, and, in 1917, she became the first woman elected to the Christchurch City Council. As a member of the National Peace Council she resisted conscription in the First World War. She died on 22 March 1933 at St. Albans, Christchurch, leaving one son and three daughters. Ada Wells campaigned for specifically feminist reforms and her service in administrative fields proved effectively that women could undertake public responsibility as ably as men. Her public service must be seen not only as valuable for its own sake but also as an attempt, courageous in her day, to prepare the way for the entry of her sex into new fields.

by Patricia Ann Grimshaw, M.A., Auckland.

Press (Christchurch), 25 Mar 1933 (Obit).

(1909– ).

Geologist.

A new biography of Wellman, Harold William appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Harold William Wellman was born on 25 March 1909 at Devonport, England, and educated at Victoria University of Wellington where he took his M.Sc. (1941) and D.Sc. (1956). He joined the permanent staff of Geological Survey in 1938 and was Senior Geologist at Greymouth for some years before becoming Principal Scientific Officer in Wellington. In 1958 he was appointed senior lecturer in the Geology Department of Victoria University and associate professor in 1963. He has been the recipient of several honours in the scientific world. These include the F.R.S.N.Z. (1954); the Hector Memorial Medal and Prize (1957); and the McKay Hammer Award (1959), the latter being bestowed by the Geological Society of New Zealand for his study of cretaceous rocks. Whilst on the staff of the Geological Survey he has published articles on such subjects as coal metamorphism, the regional geology of Nelson and Westland, the geological structure of New Zealand with particular reference to the Alpine Fault, Quaternary Tectonics of New Zealand, and the distribution and subdivision of the New Zealand cretaceous rocks. The concepts developed in the last three fields have been widely accepted. More recently his publications have dealt with Holocene stratigraphy and aspects of Antarctic geology.

Despite the recency of so much urban development, very little account has been taken of town planning concepts, and the advantages and disadvantages of uncontrolled individual development are evident throughout the region. At Upper Hutt and at Tawa the main road divides the shopping centre which is the resort largely of young married people and their children. The State housing schemes in the Hutt and in the Porirua area, whilst revealing some measure of planning, have never been carried beyond the concept of the individual home. Insufficient attention has been paid to the relationship of home, school, community centre, and work place. None of these townships is without its community facilities – the number of church halls, football clubs, gymnasiums, and sports fields that have been established reveal a considerable wealth of local initiative. Only in Lower Hutt City, however, has any attempt been made to create a civic centre where these and other activities may be grouped.

By 1981 it is estimated that the regional population will have reached a total of 384,000 persons; by the end of the century it may have reached 500,000. The problems with which the region will be faced during the remainder of the century will arise from the dispersed nature of the settlement in contrast to the concentration of the employment opportunities, and the difficulties imposed by topography upon the circulation of traffic within the region. The solution of these difficulties will not be aided by the multiplicity of local bodies.

The daily influx of workers into Wellington City and Lower Hutt – Petone cannot be expected to decrease, and therefore problems of access by road, especially to Wellington, and the circulation of traffic within Wellington City have initiated schemes for the development and improvement of motorways. Some of the inner city congestion can be relieved by the establishment of new industrial locations, already under development in Porirua City and in Tawa borough. The problems associated with the journey to work have underlined both the pressing need for regional planning and the archaic structure of local government, so that schemes have been drawn up for the amalgamation of Wellington City and Tawa borough and the formation of one local body for Titahi Bay – Porirua area (inaugurated October 1962). The loss of population from the central districts of Wellington City has directed attention to the development of high-density housing, which is becoming more attractive as the commuters become aware of the burdensome costs, social as well as financial, imposed by the long journey to work. A larger population in the central areas of the city would provide the basis for an active cultural life. As a centre for cultural activities, Wellington has much to offer.

by Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.

• Great Cities of the World, Robson, W. A. (ed.) (1954)
• Science in Wellington (Handbook), Royal Society of New Zealand (1960), “Notes on Wellington Geology”, Shaw, G. C.
• Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Vol. 85 (1958), “Dissection and redissection of the Wellington Landscape”, Cotton, C. A.
• New Zealand Science Review, Vol. 14 (1956), “The Earthquake Risk in the Wellington District”, Lensen, G. J.
• Stevens, G. R.; Wellman, H. W.;New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, Vol. 1 (1958), “The Wellington Fault from Cook Strait to Manawatu Gorge”, Lensen, G. J.
• New Zealand Geographer, Vol. 16 (1960), “The changing population of Wellington City, 1926–56”, Neville, R. J. W.
• New Zealand Society of Soil Science Proceedings, Vol. 4 (1960)
• Papers (cyclostyled), Wellington Housing and Development Conference, 14 and 15 Mar 1961
• New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, B. 38 (1957), “Geomorphology of the Hutt Valley, New Zealand”, Stevens, G. R.

The bulk of the region's working population finds its employment in Wellington City or in the industries of Lower Hutt and Petone, so that each morning of the week a large number of people arrive to work in Wellington (one recent estimate gives the figure of 19,500), whilst a lesser number (approximately 4,000) leave Wellington to work at Petone or Lower Hutt. This movement is facilitated by the electrified railway lines which link Wellington with Johnsonville, Upper Hutt, and Paekakariki, and also by the motorway between Johnsonville and Porirua.

The Wellington region is, after Auckland, the largest centre for employment in New Zealand and, after Auckland and Christchurch, the third most important centre for manufacturing. In the period 1953–61 the total labour force grew by 18·7 per cent, equal to the national rate of growth, but within the region and emphasising the geographical contrasts some important divergences appeared between the Lower Hutt and Wellington Employment Districts. Thus the labour force in manufacturing in the Lower Hutt Employment District grew by 39·62 per cent (1953–61) whereas in the Wellington Employment District it registered a decline of –2·9 per cent. Obviously the advantages of flat land possessed by the Hutt were a factor, which is also at work in the Tawa-Porirua area where industrial development has recently accelerated. Furthermore, total employment grew at a faster rate in the Hutt district than in the Wellington district. Nevertheless, in absolute terms, Wellington, with a working population of 89,700 (Lower Hutt 28,900) and a labour force of 31,500 (Lower Hutt 14,800) engaged in manufacturing, remains the principal centre of the region for employment.

In 1926 the population of Wellington City numbered 98,893 compared with Lower Hutt's total of 9,209. By 1945 Lower Hutt's population had reached a figure of 31,254, and between 1951 and 1961 it increased from 44,474 to 53,044, a growth of 19·19 per cent, compared with Wellington City's growth of only 3·22 per cent. Wellington's growth is to be regarded as the effect of an extension of the city boundary rather than a real increase in numbers. During the past decade the growth of population has been greatest in the peripheral areas of the region. In Petone, which represents one of the longest settled parts of the region, there has been a slight decline of population (–8·87 per cent) during the last decade, whereas the population of Upper Hutt borough has increased from 5,499 in 1945 to 16,894 in 1961. Tawa's growth has been even more spectacular; with a population of 598 in 1945, it now has a population of 7,204. Tawa apart, the most rapid rates of growth have been sustained in the townships of Hutt county where the population has grown by 68 per cent and in the townships of Makara county where population has grown by 193 per cent during the period 1951–61. Most of the growth in Makara county has been concentrated in the Titahi Bay – Porirua district where a new urban and community centre has emerged as a city. Furthermore, the old beach settlements of Plimmerton, Paremata, and Pukerua Bay are now predominantly dormitory suburbs of Wellington, and it is at Raumati and Paraparaumu that the large expansion of weekend baches has occurred.

The original colonists first settled at Petone (Britannia) near the mouth of the Hutt River in 1840 but, owing to floods, soon moved to the more protected site of Lambton Harbour. Consequently Wellington became the principal city of the region and eventually, in 1865, the capital of the colony. Its political importance and favoured anchorage ensured the growth of the city and attracted industry and commercial and financial establishments, whereas settlement in the Tawa-Porirua area and in the Hutt Valley remained on a small scale and was largely agricultural in character.

In more recent decades, in a period when the population of the Dominion has shown a marked tendency to urbanise and the industrial sector of the economy has increased in importance, the shortage of flat land in Wellington for residential and industrial purposes has led to a rapid expansion of settlement in the Hutt Valley, and in the 1950s in the Tawa-Porirua region. One result of this has been the creation of a multitude of local governing bodies whose varied names and statuses are liable to obscure the fact that the settlements constitute one socio-economic whole. Thus, in 1961, the 260,313 inhabitants of the region were divided amongst eight separate local bodies, the most important being Wellington City (123,969), Lower Hutt City (53,044), and the boroughs of Petone (9,888), Upper Hutt (16,861), Tawa (7,204), and Eastbourne (2,654). Within the boundaries of Hutt and Makara county there are in addition 10 townships with populations ranging between 1,000 and 9,000 persons. These townships are spread over a considerable area, the road distance between Wellington and Pukerua Bay being 22 miles, Wellington and Wainuiomata 16 miles, and Wellington and Upper Hutt 20 miles.

In the vicinity of the Wellington region the main axial range of the North Island descends from the higher levels of the Tararuas, at 3,000 to 5,000 ft, to appear as a block of greywacke whose summit lies at an altitude between 1,000 and 1,500 ft. The whole block is intensely and closely faulted, and the resulting relief is best envisaged by the layman as a series of smaller blocks, with relatively flat tops and steep sides, standing at different levels owing to the differential effect of the close faulting. Mt. Kaukau at 1,495 ft is a classic illustration of the flat summit surface, and so is Mana Island at 398 ft. Between the blocks run rivers and streams which are associated either with relatively broad open valleys, as in the Tawa-Porirua area, or with very deep valleys and gorges, as with the Kaiwharawhara Stream. Most of the valleys follow a general north-south alignment. Impressed upon this general north-south alignment and upon the intricate pattern of relief is an equally distinct north-east-south-west trend, created by the downwarping of the eastern part of the block and resulting in the formation of a fault-angle depression occupied by the excellent harbour of Port Nicholson in the south and by a narrow valley filled with the deposits of the Hutt River in the north. A conspicuous feature of the downwarping is the major fault line which appears as an escarpment to form the northern (locally termed western) boundary of the Hutt Valley.

It was not until the publication some years ago of an aerial photograph taken at 40,000 ft that many of the region's inhabitants became aware of the essential simplicity of the area's topography and pattern of settlement. The north-south trend was revealed most clearly by the line of settlements extending along a valley from Johnsonville in the south to Tawa, Linden, Porirua, and continuing on through Paremata, Plimmerton, and Pukerua Bay. Equally clear was the fault line slicing the block along a north-east-south-west trend with the manner in which the settlements of the Hutt Valley followed this line extending from Upper Hutt in the north-east to Trentham, Here-taunga, Taita, Lower Hutt, Petone and the foreshore of the harbour. A little to the south of Johnsonville the two trend lines intersect at Ngauranga, where the main north highway, Number 1, joins the Hutt Road, which links the capital with the cities and boroughs of the Hutt Valley.

The region possesses only two outlets through which all road and rail transport must flow – to the Manawatu via the Ngauranga Gorge and motorway, and through the rail tunnel (2·8 miles) between Ngauranga and Tawa – to the Wairarapa via the Rimutaka Hill road and the Rimutaka rail tunnel (5 ½ miles) between Mangaroa and Cross Creek. The constricted access imposes a number of transport problems, especially as Wellington, in addition to its other functions, acts as the port for inter-island traffic. In the event of a severe earthquake (in 1855 a 5 ft rise was recorded), the total disruption of major transport lines appears to be an inevitability.

The abrupt juxtaposition of hills, sea, and town produces a montage of extraordinary variety, and an environment that is never wholly urban, rural, or suburban. The strident mixture of seedy Victorian wooden residences, heavy commercial architecture, multi-storey glass and steel structures, industrial plants, warehouses, and wharves is broken and relieved by the expanse and colours of the harbour, or the backdrop of brooding deep-green hills. Fresh suburbs look out over hill country that is at once sweeping, massive, and gently warped, but in detail is sliced into deep narrow defiles above which the sky appears as a distant strip. The town dweller is never without a view of the hills or the sea, which alter their hues as the weather ceaselessly changes. Days of dazzling brilliance when the salt-laden air itself seems to sparkle in the sunlight are succeeded by oppressively grey sheets of nimbus, or softer days when the humid clouds seem to hang like smoke on the hillsides. From the hillsides the town itself is subjected to endless views and panoramas that from one spot include the whole sweep from the harbour entrance to the Tararuas (snow capped in winter), and from another offer a vignette reminiscent of the Mediterranean.

The Wellington region is located at the southernmost point of the North Island. Predominantly an urban area, the principal settlements being Wellington City and Lower Hutt City, it is contained within the boundaries of Makara County and Hutt County which constitute the basic units for the collection of statistics. In 1961 the total population of the area was 260,313 (representing 10·77 per cent of the total New Zealand population), 2·37 per cent of whom were Maoris. (Recently Makara County was incorporated in Hutt County.)

As originally defined in 1853, the Province of Wellington comprised all the North Island between Cook Strait and the thirty-ninth parallel, except the western salient about Mount Egmont. The western boundary was equally arbitrarily fixed at a line running from a point on the coast near Patea to the Wanganui River and thence along the course of the river to the thirty-ninth parallel. This big area included Hawke's Bay, which “seceded” in 1858 to form a separate province bounded by a line from the east coast near Cape Turnagain to the Manawatu Gorge, and thence along the crestline of the hardrock mountain ranges to the thirty-ninth parallel.

Pattern of Early Settlement

The earliest European settlements were at Port Nicholson and about the mouth of the Wanganui River; the first organised settlement in and about Hawke's Bay came a decade later, around 1850. The high interior west of the dividing ranges, covered for the most part by dense forest, was readily accessible only by such waterways as the Wanganui, Turakina, and Rangitikei Valleys. Major episodes in the establishment of settlements inland from the first points of European contact in the Wellington Province proper were the gradual establishment of a route for travel by the more open country along the west coast; the penetration of the lower Wairarapa Valley; the clearing of the forest from the lowlands both east and west of the main Tararua-Ruahine Ranges; the opening up of the Rangitikei Valley; and the inland development about the base of Ruapehu in the wake of the Main Trunk railway builders.

In all this southern portion of the North Island Maori population was relatively small; just before the coming of E. G. Wakefield's first emigrants to Port Nicholson it had been disorganised and decimated by Te Rauparaha, by that time firmly established in his fortified base on Kapiti Island. Most mainland Maoris lived in scattered groups along the open west coast country and about the lower Wanganui River, which was their main routeway inland. Though Port Nicholson had the inestimable value of its sheltered and central location on Cook Strait, the hills about it were clothed in dense forest to the water's edge. Forest and swamp made the Hutt Valley almost impenetrable, and the heavily wooded lowland reaching out to the west coast at Porirua was held by the redoubtable Te Rangihaeata, who firmly opposed survey of this only easy route to the west coast. Thus early Wellington spread itself along the waterfront, and the pattern of the town adjusted itself from the first to the difficult terrain. By 1842 the total European civilian population of the province was a mere 3,700, most of whom were established around Port Nicholson itself.

The first important movement of settlers from this confined space was into the open lowland of the Wairarapa. In 1844 C. R. Bidwill, Charles Clifford, and Frederick Weld pioneered the driving of sheep by the very difficult route along the coast on to land for which they had negotiated directly with the local Maoris. It was not until more than a decade later that the road through the Hutt Valley bush and over the Rimutaka Range was open to wheeled traffic. The lower valley and the hill country to the east of it was taken up by the early runholders; it was by the road over the Rimutakas that a new type of pioneer came in under the wing of the Small Farms Association. Such smallholders took up land about Featherston, Greytown, and Masterton in 1856 and Carterton in 1857. The early history of the Wairarapa settlements was marked by conflict of interest between runholder and smallholder, both of whom faced their own special kinds of hardship in the pioneering days. The present pattern of settlement reflects progressive subdivision of the runs and the foundation of dairy farming on the plains. The provincial towns have grown out of service to their several countrysides. Masterton (15,121), a natural focus for the whole region, is much the largest of these. Its isolation from Wellington City by the topographic barrier of the Rimutaka Range has always been something of a handicap to the Wairarapa. The early railway climbed laboriously over the barrier, but a tunnel through it has brought Masterton much closer in time to the capital city.

In the early days of European settlement the west coast was dominated by Te Rauparaha, who had come south from Kawhia on a mission of conquest of the south. Maori settlements were scattered along the rivers and by the lakes among the sandhills near the coast. The coast route was the only easy way to the north and west, for the mountain slopes and the Manawatu Plain were covered by almost impassable forest that delayed occupation until the 1870s. There was soon a flourishing trade in pigs, potatoes, wheat, and flax with the Maoris along the coast. Perhaps the most famous of the pioneers was Hadfield, the missionary, based on Otaki as early as 1839; abstaining himself from acquisition of land, he exerted an enormous influence for good in his time. Foxton was a key point on the coast route to Wanganui, and from it the only easy way inland was by the Manawatu River.

Importance of Wanganui

Wanganui was the earliest outpost of settlement on the Wellington west coast. In 1840 E. J. Wakefield bought from the Maoris the land immediately about the mouth of the river, and settlers soon moved in from Port Nicholson. But in 10 years the population grew to only some 350. The pioneers had endless trouble not only with the Maoris but also in getting possession of the land they had bought from the New Zealand Company. In 1848 some 80,000 acres had been purchased, but occupation of it was held up; trouble with the Maoris had led to open conflict and Wanganui became a fortified base with a garrison of regular soldiers. A state of tension lasted through the time of the Taranaki Wars of the 1860s, but with peace came rapid progress.

The growth of Wanganui has always reflected closely the development and prosperity of its rural hinterland. By 1874 the population of the town was 2,500, rising to 4,600 by 1881. Completion of the Wellington – New Plymouth railway in 1885 ended its isolation as an “island” of settlement on the west coast dependent on its own rather difficult river-mouth port. The coastal fringe of open country on the wide terraces of the rivers was rapidly occupied, and bush clearing on a big scale went on inland through the 1890s. Grass and livestock throve on the bush burns even on very steep slopes. Through the early 1900s Wanganui was something of a boom town, its rapid growth reflecting the development of the hinterland, especially this inland hill country. In the face of vigorous growth of fern and second growth forest, however, many farmers found it hard to hold their pastures; the depression of the 1930s was most severely felt in the back country and the city population declined. The city, as a natural focus for all the western part of Wellington Province, is steadily growing again. Its present prosperity (35,694 in 1961) is based mainly on the sheep farming of its hinterland, with production of fat lambs on the high-grade pastures of the easier coastal country and store sheep and wool inland.

Settlement of the Manawatu

In the early 1870s dense forest reached from the Manawatu Plain across the Tararua-Ruahine Ranges almost to the east coast, completely isolating the open country of the Wairarapa from that in Hawke's Bay. Most of it lay within the catchment of the Manawatu River; east of the ranges, from the vicinity of Norsewood almost to Masterton, it was known as the Seventy Mile Bush. In 1870 Julius Vogel determined to have a railway through it from Wellington to Napier, its building to be financed in part by sale of land to settlers. Immigrants were recruited from Scandinavian Europe, the first arriving in 1872. Within three years 2,000 Danes, 740 Norwegians, and 725 Swedes had come to take up 40-acre sections, clear the bush, make their farmlets, and work on road and railway. Their life was arduous and primitive in the extreme, but they laid the foundation to one of the richest farm-land districts of the Wellington Province. The heart of it is the lowland containing the north-flowing tributaries of the Manawatu River and the provincial towns of Eketahuna and Pahiatua. The rest of the area covered by the Seventy Mile Bush lies within the province of Hawke's Bay; it, too, was cleared by Scandinavian pioneers who have left us their town of Dannevirke as its main centre.

Clearing of the bush for the settlements about Palmerston North and Feilding also got under way in the 1870s. There were then some 3,000 Maoris scattered along the Manawatu River, mainly in the open country about its mouth. So dense and gloomy was the forest that only the river gave easy access to it. Up-stream, on an open space in the bush, the first store on the site of Palmerston North was set up in 1870. Flax and timber were the main commodities of early commerce. Feilding became the centre of the Manchester settlement, so named from the Duke of Manchester, chairman of a corporation organised to send English immigrants to a block of 106,000 acres of virgin forest and swamp. The first settlers arrived in 1874, the same year that saw a similar settlement on the Carnarvon Block about the mouth of the Rangitikei River. Through the 1870s and 1880s occupation of all the easy lowland east of the ranges proceeded steadily, and out of it has grown one of the richest and most closely settled farming regions of the province. Development of dairying in the early 1900s gave it a special impetus.

Palmerston North became the natural focus of all this, mainly, perhaps, from its location as a nodal point of the railway system. In 1877 its population was 880; in 1890, 3,800; in 1910, 6,400; in 1920, 15,000; and in 1961, 43,185. The nearby town of Feilding has grown just beyond 8,000, and the growth of Levin to a similar size reflects the steady development of the Horowhenua coastlands to the south. A feature of this part of the Wellington west coast has been its recent rapid growth as a seaside-resort area.

In 1884, when Marton was at the edge of the gloomy forest that barred the way to the North Island interior, a commission met there to consider possible routes for a trans-island railway. The decision ultimately taken was to follow the route of the Rangitikei Valley to the plateau about Mount Ruapehu and thence to Te Kuiti at the head of the Waipa Valley lowland. The Rangitikei River, flowing south from its source in the Kaimanawa Ranges, occupied a wide and terraced valley in the mudstone (papa) country. The river itself and all its feeder streams flowed in deep and precipitous gutters, with terraces, hills, and narrow channels alike clothed in dense forest. The Main Trunk railway, built in this terrain, is something of a monument to the skill of the engineers of the times. It was completed in 1908, giving access at last to the high volcanic country on the northern edge of the province. Previously most who visited this part of the plateau interior came in over the mountains from Hawke's Bay.

The grassland farmer followed in the wake of the railway and road builder and the sawmiller. A string of provincial towns along the route all belong to the 1900s. Taihape (2,682) is the largest of these in the Rangitikei Valley itself; Ohakune (1,542) and Raetihi (1,343), about the south-western base of Ruapehu, are centres of one of the last of the inland areas to be cleared of forest. A big forest fire destroyed a large area of primitive forest at Raetihi as lately as 1918.

In Wellington Province the population pattern reflects the general pattern of the terrain. Large inland areas have very few people, notably the complex of the Kaimanawa Ranges, the nearby volcanic mountains of Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe, the rugged country of the upper catchments of the Wanganui and neighbouring rivers and the Rimutaka-Tararua-Ruahine mountain belt. The economy rests mainly on grassland farming and the province is a leading producer of meat, wool, and dairy produce, but there are no significant resources of minerals and water is harnessed for power only on a small scale (Mangahao).

Growth of Wellington City

The most remarkable development of the past three decades has been the rapid urban growth about Wellington City itself where the terrain has affected the pattern of urban spread as profoundly as it did in 1940. The main built-up area has taken something of the shape of a St. Andrew's cross, up the Hutt Valley from Port Nicholson and out to the west coast by the Porirua lowland. The commercial core of the city proper is built on land reclaimed from the original harbour. All this remarkable growth reflects the role of Wellington City as chief administration centre and a chief port of the country at large, and its location has attracted many new industries during the past three decades. The present population of the Wellington-Hutt urban complex is some 240,000 (i.e., more than half the total population of the whole provincial district, 473,621 in 1961). In Palmerston North, too, recent urban growth has been rapid, this reflecting the special advantages of its location. Rural population has, however, remained stable or even declined since 1911, at which time its distribution pattern had almost completely taken its present form.

Some statistics of rural production indicate the general pattern of growth of the economy of the province:

The period of most active development of new farm land was between 1891 and 1911; little new land has been won since 1921.

The table shows the special importance of sheep in the provincial economy. Locally, dairying was a great help to the small settler, but frozen meat and wool have meant much more to Wellington Province.

Mixed-crop farming was most important in the period 1840–90; the largest acreage of wheat in Wellington Province (18,000 acres) was grown in 1899; since then it has varied between 5,000 and 10,000 acres.

Sawmilling was specially important from 1880 to 1914 – main areas milled being the Manawatu, the Seventy Mile Bush, and the Rangitikei Valley. During the past 30 years it has been confined mainly to the Ohakune – National Park area, but the remaining stands are being rapidly cut out.

by George Jobberns, C.B.E., M.A., D.SC., Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Canterbury.

• Old Manawatu, Buick, T. L. (1903)
• Early Victorian New Zealand, Miller, J. (1958)
• The City of the Strait – Wellington and its Province, Mulgan, A. (1939)
• Forest Homes – Scandinavian Settlements in New Zealand, Petersen, G. C. (1956)
• Early Rangitikei, Wilson, J. G. (1914).